Where to Summer During Today's Blood Moon

For those who want to lean into the horror.

On Friday, July 27, at exactly 4:20 p.m. Eastern Time, the longest lunar eclipse in a century will occur, lasting nearly two hours, scattering reddish light across the sky. This is the “blood” moon.

Bad things are going to happen.

This historic event coincides with the retrograde tours of Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto, meaning everything from basic decision-making to romantic relationships to travel will suffer. For those who want to make the most of its horror, here are a few suggestions for where to be when the blood moon hits.

Your Bed

Usually thought of for sleeping or cruising Netflix while eating chips, your bed has a rich heritage in accommodating sad, disillusioned bodies unable to hold themselves upright. While the blood moon levels you, literally, in a horizontal position, you can spread out, noticing that you are alone in bed. Being reminded that you no longer have a partner functions as an aesthetic contrast to the softness and comfort of the bed, which will help you physicalize the opposition between the moon and the sun.

A Bath in Your Shower

Without the luxury of a tub, you may have forgotten the soothing qualities of a bath. And since the blood moon will oppose Mars, you’ll feel tension between your emotions and your body. That tension will be perfectly manifest in a bath that you attempt to draw inside your shower stall, which hasn’t the capacity for any depth of liquid. You will be forced to seat your naked flesh on the lumpy tile, which, now that you’re looking closely, is well overdue for a re-grout.

The Internet

This isn't a physical place, but you may begin to dissociate from your body when the blood moon inspires an extended argument with your mother about whether nine city blocks is far enough away to call a Lyft. In this state, consider browsing your successful friends’ Instagram stories to provoke jealousy-pangs that will wake you violently from your catatonic state. Be warned that this is only an option if your Wi-Fi connection holds steady, but given that Mercury will be in retrograde at this time, it will not.

The Sidewalk Near Your Ex's Apartment

For those of you who are a bit more “outdoorsy,” you may want to avoid the coziness and familiarity of home and seek an environment that better matches the stark alienation you feel from the world. Taking a walk past your ex-boyfriend’s apartment can deliver the masochistic sting you’re looking for during this blood moon. Even better, it comes with the disturbing possibility that you could run into him with his new girlfriend, whom you just saw on his Instagram celebrating a second callback for Hamilton. This specific dissonance of nostalgia and regret is native to this locality and cannot be sourced anywhere else.

Between Subway Stations

Because this blood moon is opposing Mercury in retrograde, all travel will become a Rube Goldberg-esque hellscape of delays and re-routes. To capitalize on that chaos, consider spending some time on the Q train stalled between Canal and DeKalb. Inevitably the MTA will pick an arbitrary reason to stop moving indefinitely, and any updates from the conductor will come through in an indecipherable, tinny static. It could be train traffic, a fire, someone who got sick, a rogue B train that intercepted the route—it doesn’t matter. It will be infuriating. This is an excellent time to sit with your lack of agency, as is customary with a retrograde Mars, and realize you have to pee, which is all you.

Your Friend’s Improv Show

The blood moon will stir up tension in your social circle, which is likely to flower in the setting of your friend’s improv show, especially one so early in the day. While bad improv is always heartbreaking to witness, the number of denials, schlocky puns, and dick jokes will create a cocktail of agitation, confusion, and indignation that will ruin your stomach for the rest of the week. You will leave feeling worse about your friends but no better about yourself, as was foretold by the eclipse.

Montauk

This charming hamlet at the very end of Long Island (Montauk literally translates to “the end of the line”) is a real place where people summer, and as such, it can elevate the self-loathing dimension of the blood moon to a new high. Filled with rich assholes, social climbers, and sociopaths, Montauk is one of the saddest, emptiest places on earth. The conspicuous wealth of empathy-challenged monsters will force a painful recognition that life is neither fair nor kind, which echoes the tense aspects between the sun, the moon, and Uranus, planet of surprises. You will not be allowed on the lovely beaches—that part we know. The surprise will be the reason.